Author: Irfan Husain
Publication: Dawn
Date: September 7, 2002
URL: http://www.dawn.com/weekly/mazdak/mazdak.htm
As the first anniversary of the
9/11 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington approaches, millions
around the world will join the Americans in mourning the dead and condemning
the attacks.
More than any other event since
the Second World War, these multiple acts of violence have wrought seismic
changes in western attitudes and policies. The basis of old alliances is
being questioned and new ones forged. Unilateral action is replacing the
principle of consensus enshrined in the UN Charter. And more and more threats
and angry rhetoric are replacing reason and international law in communications
between states.
Americans know how many lives were
lost and how many billions worth of property destroyed by Al Qaeda last
year. It is high time Muslims add up their losses and compute just how
devastating the 9/11 attacks were to them directly and indirectly. This
is specially important because those who carried out these attacks and
those who backed them claim to have acted in the name of Islam.
But right from the beginning, the
Muslim world has been in denial, simply repudiating Osama bin Laden and
his activists without admitting that they are Muslims and their thinking
has been shaped by the faith and culture in which they have been raised.
To this day, there are many Muslims who are convinced that the attacks
were carried out by the Israeli and American intelligence services.
Many westerners now feel that Islam
is a religion that preaches and encourages violence, citing the many wars
Muslims have been, or are, engaged in, mostly with each other. The willingness
of young men and women to commit suicide while attacking their enemies
is seen as a confirmation of the belief that, somehow, Muslims place a
lower value on human life than the westerners do.
In many cases, 9/11 has simply allowed
existing prejudices to surface and acquire legitimacy: where it was politically
incorrect to give voice to anti-Islamic views, it is now commonplace to
come across this hate-filled rhetoric in the media. So far has this agenda
progressed that there is now talk in Washington of freezing Saudi assets
and seizing their oilfields. Considering that for decades the kingdom has
been America's closest ally and client in the region, this kind of hostility
is unprecedented.But while states can shrug off this kind of venom, Muslim
immigrants trying to make a new life in the West find it much harder to
do so. For them, the events of 9/11 were an unqualified disaster. As it
was, they had to contend with more than their share of prejudice; now,
with feelings still running high and without any check on racist sentiments,
Muslims are being targeted as never before. Ethnic profiling is now an
accepted practice with the law enforcement agencies. Unemployment among
Muslims in Europe, already higher than for other immigrant groups, has
become a huge problem. A man with an untrimmed beard or a woman wearing
hijab is unlikely to be asked for a job interview.
Unfortunately, over time, individual
likes and dislikes are likely to be translated into state policy. Thus,
the current antagonism towards Islam and Muslims in the West is already
feeding the hostility being displayed by Washington towards a number of
Muslim states. Iraq, of course, is the bete noir of the Bush administration,
and the events of 9/11 have only given the hawks in the American government
an excuse to raise the threat level against Saddam Hussein.
On a more philosophical level, Osama
bin Laden and his Al Qaeda have managed to drag Huntington's 'Clash of
Civilizations' out of the obscurity it deserved after making a splash when
it first appeared a few years ago. The point the American political scientist
made about Islam having 'bloody borders' seems vindicated, and his whole
thesis about the underlying tension between the Hellenic-Christian West
and Islam appears to have been finally proved after it had been thoroughly
debunked by serious academics.
If unchallenged, this growing divide
has certain very serious implications for the future. Whether we like it
or not - and most Muslims don't - the West has a virtual monopoly on capital
and technology. The Muslim world has failed to internalize science and
reason, and has been paying a heavy price for its backwardness for centuries.
This trend is unlikely to change in the near future, and the present dependence
on the West is going to continue.
However, except for the oil-exporting
nations, other Muslim countries will need either foreign aid or investments
if they are to keep their heads above water. But in the current climate
of hostility and distrust, it is doubtful if the old relationships will
endure, particularly if religious fanatics continue to attack western interests.
Already, investments in Pakistan have dropped to a trickle because of the
terrorist strikes against Americans, Europeans and local Christians.
Students from Muslim countries wishing
to study in America are another group to suffer the backlash of 9/11. Understandably,
Americans are now very cautious about who they allow to enter their country
for higher studies, given that many of those involved in the attacks in
New York and Washington had come on student visas. Hundreds of Saudi students
have returned to their country as they could not cope with the antagonism
they encountered. Ordinary businessmen and tourists from the Muslim world
have recounted horror stories about harassment by the FBI and the Immigration
Service. But given that President Bush has declared war on terrorism, these
precautions and attitudes are to be expected.
Despite all these problems and setbacks,
there are many in the Muslim world who secretly feel that the 9/11 attacks
were justified, and that Osama bin Laden is a hero. For them, the West
is the villain and any means to oppose it are justified. Ironically, these
same people want their children to study in America. There are well-known
Pakistani leaders of religious parties whose kids have settled in the States.
Clearly there is a contradiction here, but it is one that we Muslims are
all too keen to sweep under the carpet.
The bottom line is that we cannot
simultaneously wage war against the West and expect its assistance.
